


how to build a universe

by neptunedemon



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Falling In Love, M/M, Magic, Magic Realism, Original Universe, Rivalry, Small Attempts to Fathom the Universe, alternate title, how to destroy a universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 13:13:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14356224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neptunedemon/pseuds/neptunedemon
Summary: Yuri stands there with the rain dripping from his hair. His clothes are soaked through, and it's so cold that the rectangle of light from the open doorway he’s standing in almost feels warm.So, the sky is falling.“Where is he?” He grits his teeth. The man looks behind him, then above him at the grey sky and sheets of water, then finally meets his eyes.“You must be Yuri,” he says.-A tiny fantasy in which some magical boys are given a greater control on their universe than should be allowed.





	how to build a universe

**Author's Note:**

> As well as an ode to existing, of winning against the trillions-to-one odds that we are even here, this is an ode to how pure and wholesome Otayuri is to me. A funny sentence to type, I realize!

> Vibrational denial:
> 
> The refusal to believe that your universe is shaped or affected by the energies that come from your actions and beliefs.

His magic was darkness and starlight, and Otabek’s is mountains of green with the goddamn sheen of the sun.

Yuri hates it and he hates him.

It’s so uncreative to have your magic taking people to where they will be when they walk out of the tent.

There are mountains here in Ackbrynn. The sun rises every day. There’s blue in all directions. The day brings green. Nothing new there.

Yuri had tried to sit in on a performance once.

He’d quickly left because it was nothing. It was nothing, like adding air to the air. Breathing out.

Nothing.

But take darkness, a being so smothering, and add the cosmos - and then you could blow someone’s mind. You could tear them from the seats of the planet and they’d never forget you.

Ackbrynn doesn’t need the ground and the dirt and the cap of the sky.

Maybe other places do, but not here. There’s enough of that.

~

The tent ceases to have walls as Yuri breaks them apart. His audience gasps – or the new ones do, at least. His regulars remain silent.

There’s the smothering of black, a blanket so thick and impenetrable that one struggles to feel they can breathe. The newcomers gasp again, some cough.

This is actually all there is; he puts that thought in their minds. This isn’t even absence, because absence implies the space in which to be gone from.

He knows they feel insignificant right now. Discarded, but they aren’t thrown away. They were never collected to begin with.

But now this is what the gift of perception gives: in less than a blink, the darkness is filled with light.

It’s terrifying for the newcomers.

The universe is beneath and above and all around them — their chairs are gone from under them.

Yuri smirks a little as he feels their awe. His hands shift, and he changes the way the energy flows through him - instead of through his mind, he pulls it from the space above his head, like he has a literal higher-self working with him.

The universe hangs steady.

They all still feel so, so insignificant.

~

He’s collecting his earnings from tonight’s show when someone clears their throat through the entrance of the tent.

Yuri rolls his eyes.

He’s pretty sure Otabek only sees his show so often as a jibe that Yuri has never sat through one of his completely.

Like he’s the better person somehow.

“Another good performance,” he says. Yuri scowls, shoving money into his pocket.

“Thanks,” he mutters.

He pushes past Otabek and ignores the way even his aura feels like roots trying to grab his wrists, his arms, his ribs. It’s so damned invasive and prying.

They’re out into the night, where some of his patrons stand still like the dead. Their eyes are to the sky.

They look lost, almost afraid, but they’ll be okay.

The universe isn’t just up there, Yuri wants to say.

He doesn’t.

They’ll carry this with them: the sense of foreboding, of imminent ending trapped inside infinite time.

Otabek might’ve said more, but Mila prances into the scene, grabbing Yuri by the arm. She throws a glance at Otabek, nodding with a small smile that’s both a greeting and a farewell, before turning fully to Yuri.

Mila feels like something burning, flames contagious and engulfing the world fast - Yuri equates it to the sun. The actual fucking sun, not its light beams like -

“Yuri, I didn’t know you had another show tonight! I’ve been looking for you.” She doesn’t give him time. “Come with me, a new boy is performing in another tent.”

Yuri lets himself be pulled by her. Otabek is left behind; good ridden, too.

“I don’t like watching kids work,” he warns her.

She turns back, flashes a smile.

“He’s older than you, I believe. Just a late bloomer or something.”

Yuri narrows his eyes but goes with her. He’s still suspicious, but less so.

There’s the distant pulsing of magic in all the tents, where people are no longer seeing the bleak flaps of the tent fabric.

They aren’t hearing Mila’s high-pitched chatter, or the breeze curl through the tent yard.

The tents are used because they’re cheap and the location doesn’t matter. Just a place to gather everyone is needed.

“Saw Otabek,” Mila comments.

“Tch.” Yuri stuffs hands in his coat pockets. The wind blows, but it’s still warm. It’s always warm.

People believe in the winter, in biting cold — Georgie sees to that — but they don’t desire it.

Mila shrugs and doesn’t press further.

~

Maybe Yuri’s seen the new guy around. Maybe.

But it doesn’t change the fact that their names are irritatingly similar.

Yuuri.

The tent is full for him, even though it’s late.

He’s got glasses on and stands there awkwardly; it’s nerves, definitely.

Yuri tried to feel how he fills the space before the act, but he can’t get a read.

There’s a blip of something though - it feels familiar, like his own magic: deep and hollow. Buts it’s heavier and smaller, compact and together. It doesn’t make sense and Yuri begins to doubt this.

“He feels cold,” Mila whispers. Yuri’s forehead creases. He hadn’t thought that.

Yuuri stands a little straighter and remaining voices dissipate.

They’re seated in a circle around him, people almost shoulder to shoulder in the tent.

Yuuri’s arms raise.

And a horrible sound fills their ears.

It's like a muted roar that's somehow rolling in circles; it fills Yuri's head and he's aware that the others are exclaiming, shifting, gesturing, but everything feels slow and distant.

The world is fragmented, and Yuri blinks several times to try and understand what he's seeing - and then he does.

They're all under water.

He looks up and sees the sunlight glinting on a wavering surface far, far above.

Its light barely reaches down here.

When they leave the tent an indefinite amount of time later, people aren't stilled and off the way they are when they leave Yuri's shows. They're whispering together, their voices rolling through the tented grounds like waves themselves.

Even Mila: "What did you think? That was... something."

Yuri looks to the ground and the grass passing underfoot. "Yeah."

"I think this will change things," she says.

The next day the ocean reaches Ackbrynn.

~

> _Everything you can imagine is real._
> 
> \- Pablo Picasso

~

The tent grounds is that the edge of town. And the edge of town is just where the tent grounds splay out before reaching the hills with their forests, with rugged cliffs beyond that, and then probably the edge of the world.

Maybe where the ocean was now used to be that, too - but already even Yuri isn't sure. It doesn't matter, because what matters is that there's an ocean now.

(Tomorrow the ocean would have undoubtedly always been there.)

~

During the sun hours, Yuri works at an establishment called Aga-Cafe.

Today Otabek appears in the small crowd of customers.

He stares at Otabek across the counter, contemplating whether or not to ask Viktor to come and serve him or just deal with him himself.

He decides not to be quite that petty.

"Yeah?" he says, face straight.

Otabek pretends not to notice this blunt rudeness. He squints at the menu over Yuri's head.

"What's your Labaray?"

"Have you not been here before?"

"Hm." Otabek purses his lips. "Didn't know you worked her until I saw you come in this morning. So, no."

"What."

Yuri is very much not amused by this.

"Actually, never mind." He turns fast, mixing the drink quickly. He adds a dash of Wishleux, which bubbles it pink.

He throws in maybe a little too much Salanto then, and it's green. Definitely a little too much - the color is a shade too dark. But Yuri shrugs and hands it to him.

"Here you are," he says, suddenly sounding too polite.

Otabek takes it, staring into the vial with raised eyebrows.

"Something wrong?" Yuri puts a hand on his hip, head to the side. He's still hasn't paid yet.

Otabek digs a hand into his pocket. "Ah, nothing. It's just a rather lovely shade of green, don't you think?"

He puts money on the counter.

Yuri takes it and it's much more than the price of the drink, but Otabek is already nearly out the door.

"Hey! I don't want your damned tip!" Yuri shouts, but the door falls shut.

~

He's in the audience again that night.

Is it really to spite him, or is he actually addicted to having his head sucked into the void like some of these people?

He doesn't stay behind to comment this time.

~

Yuri chooses Viktor's tent tonight.

Viktor is important. Yuri wants to deny it, wants to pretend it isn't true and that Viktor's performance is a waste because it's so intangible. But then he knows his own performance is too, though he feels like he could argue its validity more.

Viktor makes their hearts beat.

Not in a flesh and blood way - no, this was a beat that came from the rest of the world and charged their hearts. It was a pulse coming through the roots of their limbs and squeezing their chests.

Yuri could only stomach Viktor's tent once a month or so.

It brought the world too close to his fingertips; it made him feel kinship with the people around him, made him want to look at them and see they’re more than singularities bumbling around through time and space.

~

"How about the Leglade," Otabek requests. His hand is in his pocket, resting there innocently - but Yuri just knows that he's waiting to hand Yuri a too-large bill for shits.

When Otabek leaves, Viktor pops from the back.

"Yuri!" he chortles. "Was that Otabek?"

Yuri sneers with, "It was."

"I saw his show after mine last night."

"I don't like his magic," Yuri states as if Viktor asked for his opinion. He wipes mindlessly at the counter around the ingredient vials.

Viktor waves his words away. "That's no secret," he shrugs. "But it's so good, Yuri. It would do you well."

Yuri rolls his eyes and knocks his head to the side to stare at Viktor as exasperated as he can, but he's saved by the door opening.

He turns to the counter, and it's Yuuri, the one with the ocean magic.

"Hi," he says, and he's timid like before his performance. Yuri isn't a fool though - he'd seen that show. He'd felt that ocean, that depth...

Condensed space.

Viktor maybe hadn't seen it yet, Yuri realizes, yet Viktor is leaning over the counter.

"Hello," he drawls slowly. Yuri holds back a scoff, and does so even more as the ocean boy's face goes rosy.

In place of Yuri, Viktor continues, "And what can I get you?"

~

Mr. Chalunont's tent moves fast - it literally rushes them through the earth on the tips of wind.

Blades of grass whip by with sharp caresses, and trees are meant for dancing around. Leaves are partners in the rush, twirling in gusts until they’re kissing the earth.

The sky is reachable, yet it's still a limit.

~

"You know where he works, right?"

Viktor is the one who made Otabek's drink today. Yuri is busy with stocking.

He shoves a box under the counter.

"Some corporate or business shit, right?"

Otabek had gotten a Lackler. Those were meant for control of will. What the hell would he want that for?

"Not quite. He works in Records."

Yuri almost pauses in interest, but he catches himself. He rotates the box, then rises to his feet.

"Like the writing thing?"

In his peripheral he can see Viktor nod.

"Yes, so writing out history, basically."

"Anyone could do that, really," Yuri suggests.

Viktor tilts his head sideways. "You really think so?" His grin is amused; for some reason it makes Yuri mad.

"Well yeah," he says. "You write down what happens each day. Is that a big deal?"

Viktor shrugs, then turns to face the cafe as the door opens and a customer comes in.

Yuri goes back to organizing bottles and vials, unfairly perturbed by Viktor's prodding, as well as frustrated with himself at the answers he gave. Of course being a Recorder is a big deal, but he can't remember why. The lack of memory touches upon a fuzzy place in his mind, and he lets the pondering fall away before he’s made too uncomfortable.

For some reason, Yuri suddenly has the urge to go by the ocean after work. It'd been a while since he'd sat and listened to the waves.

~

The next time Yuri performs, Otabek is performing at the same time. It'd been a while since this happened - but Yuri felt him out there, his magic ensnaring the tents in the area with his tethering curses.

With the cosmos blasted out around them, Yuri was horrified to look down and see the planet far beneath their feet. It wasn't supposed to be there - and if it was, it was on his terms. Not because someone else's magic crept into his like spreading mold.

His regulars shift around him, whispering their confusion; some are excited by the change. Yuri scowls. How dare them. How dare anyone.

He imagines the chasm of space wider. Then he thought of them hurtling through it like light.

_Just get away._

The audience gasps.

Faster, so that they can't even see the emptiness, but only feel its forms building around them and then collapsing immediately - building and collapsing, building and collapsing.

His neck prickles and it he nearly yells. Otabek's magic is somehow taking chase - but how?

It's so goddamned limited.

Yet... Yuri doesn't understand.

Patrons leaving his tent that night don't speak.

Their eyes aren't to the sky either. They're straight ahead, unfocused, their mouths hanging open as if caught in a constant precipice of words that keep escaping.

Yuri may have overdone it tonight.

But he can't care right now.

He storms off across the grounds, between tents with magic emanating from them - some weakly, some strongly, but none as hideously pressing and invasive as Otabek's.

His show is still in its closing act. He feels it even as he stomps toward it. The tent is still, the breeze calm tonight, but whatever is beyond the fabrics of the tent begs Yuri forth, asking him to dig himself into the ground until he's made himself a grave.

It's reckless, but Yuri throws apart the curtains that make up the entrance.

There's a blast of light. The world tilts underfoot, Yuri almost knocking to the ground as he shields his eyes from the brightness.

"Otabek!" he yells despite the chaos.

Voices rise up as the light fades back into the dull space of the tent. People have risen from their chairs in alarm at this interruption, but Yuri's eyes cut through them to Otabek.

Otabek is center-stage, hands clenched at his sides. He stares at Yuri, face still, though his eyes are clearly dark even in the shadows.

Yuri realizes he's furious.

Something strange shifts in his chest, like his ribs are becoming suddenly tight.

Likely the effect of this room. Fucking flesh-and-bone-and-dirt magic.

"Yuri." His name is said like a statement. A cold, hard-edged statement. Yuri clenches his teeth against a shiver.

"You messed with my magic," he says. He steps further into the tent because now the patrons are sifting around, trying to get out. Some are swaying - Yuri registers this idly and is confused by it, but he pushes the thoughts away. There's only one concern he has now.

"You interrupted," Otabek states. "Why would you do that? Do you have any idea how-"

"Don't change the subject!"

Yuri kicks a chair out of the way, and Otabek flinches.

Yuri suddenly feels a little dramatic but he can't stop now.

Otabek is holding back, like he doesn’t want to argue. It figures, Yuri thinks.

He comes to confront him at last and he shuts down, no sly little double-edged compliments or faux flirty jokes.

Is he a coward? Even this would surprise Yuri - he expected more from his opponent.

Otabek’s eyes narrow further and he shakes his head. “You are misguided.”

The bland tent walls bleed into blackness. Lights dance far, far beyond them like notes on stanzas.

Otabek takes a step back and then jumps forward as if unsure whether or not he’ll fall into the void.

Yuri breathes deep, focusing on his magic. Focusing on opening the maw of the universe up so wide that even he can feel it ache.

But then there’s something there; he recognizes it immediately.

Otabek is fighting back.

Yuri blinks and they’re in a cave. Dark, like space, but sound isn’t swallowed up but bounces back. He can hear the _drip drip drip_ of water.

He crumbles the stone walls and there’s a million suns that could incinerate them so easily.

Those suns are just fireflies passing through the evening.

A supernova’s collapse is just a volcano erupting.

The entire universe is just a single human body.

Back and forth, back and forth.

They stand across from each other, suspended over no clear surface as the world inside the tent swathes from the infinite to the tangible, back and forth like no pattern quite found in nature.

Yuri’s heart hammers, his blood pounds in his ears.

Otabek’s magic curls into his own like fingers locking in his hair. For a moment Yuri can imagine kissing him. Fiercely, angrily, as if that would sate him more than toiling in the throes of their magic.

He wants to blush against the image but he can’t - he doesn’t care, he’s too mad, and he’d rather let the scene of him dragging Otabek into him roll out and charge his frustration.

It’s hard not to, anyway, when he feels those fucking roots stretch out through the space he has spent so long perfecting. Otabek fills it with planets and nature and echoes.

Yuri can still feel the ground under his feet but it feels like there’s nothing under the ground, as if they’re floating on chunks of it torn from the planet.

No one has ever had a tent like this. Yuri’s never experienced anything close to it.

Wind blows through his hair; it whips from his face and for a moment he grins at Otabek.

The corners of Otabek’s lips hint at a smirk, too.

Yuri’s heart pounds - and the starry void-sky deluge cracks.

As in an actual crack runs down it, far, far above, and light shoots to the planet in radiant white beams.

The loose ground underfoot shakes as Otabek is taken aback by this, too. Yuri doesn’t know what to do - he doesn’t know what this is.

The light seems to be humming: it’s a deep, low hum, and it’s a chilling sound that only builds on its vibrato as the crack splinters further like its racing across a frozen lake.

Yuri can only stare.

Until:

“Stop.”

He blinks.

They’re in the tent.

Otabek is centimeters from him. His hand is around his wrist, warm and grounding and safe.

Yuri subsequently tears from his grasp, and he opens his mouth to spew his anger but he hasn’t found his voice yet.

Otabek’s eyes are wide and shifting between Yuri’s own in the dimness of the tent. Almost afraid, almost... something else.

Yuri turns fast. He needs out of there.

He maybe hears Otabek call his name but it’s lost in the shift of tent fabric as he emerges.

Standing in the night is... damned near everyone, like they’d all poured out of their respective tents to stare. Even Mila is there, fronting them all, hands on her chest.

Yuri doesn’t know what they saw or felt. He leaves the tent grounds, imagining that each set of eyes burning into his back to be just stars quietly burning through the void.

~

> _The universe just fucking knows when souls are wired to wreck the world together._
> 
> \- Erin Van Vuren

~

Viktor tries to get Yuri to talk about it, but Yuri refuses. For once he wishes they’d be flooded with customers to take away the opportunity for Viktor to reach the subject, but they’re unusually dead today.

On top of that, the sky is greying, and Viktor seems strangely concerned about that.

So Viktor is all edges and prodding questions and Yuri just wants to make enchanted drinks in peace, but there’s only so much cleaning and pretending to stock one can do.

Viktor gives up with a sigh, and stares – for the thousandth time – forlornly out the window.

“Truly strange weather,” he mutters.

~

Yuri stares at his hands before his show.

He can’t stop thinking about it.

About how his magic felt against Otabek’s. And it wasn’t just _against_ \- it was _with_.

Yuri is on the floor of his tent, waiting there an hour before his show is supposed to start, trying to find the simplicity and peace of mind needed to have a successful show.

When it’s time, everyone is extra quiet; his regulars feel like newbies again, and the newbies fail to hide their slight tremble.

He does put on a show, but the ground floats beneath their feet. He can’t reach the vividity of the infinite that once was so easily called upon.

He wants Otabek to be performing tonight, and thus be possibly interfering again so that he had something to blame, but when he feels for him he reaches nothing. However the distraction costs him. There’s a horrid humming sound, bright light, and suddenly the blackness is cracking above them like before.

Wind is whipping again, and thunder cracks – storms are never a part of his show. Weather is the last thing on his mind.

There’s another boom and a flash of light that’s not of the beam cutting through the dark, and Yuri realizes it’s actually storming beyond the tent.

He brings them back abruptly and ends early.

~

The weather doesn’t stop there. It rains, it pours, and thunder and lightning coming from nowhere is everywhere. The sky is pounding its fists into their small town, pouring out frustrations not their’s to be burdened with.

People are staying indoors and shows are canceled. The ocean blurs and Yuri suspects it wasn’t meant to be there, anyhow.

Aga-Cafe is busy again as it’s one of the few places left open. Yuri works extra hours, both for the money and something to do.

“What’s causing all this damned rain?” Yuri mutters.

The question comes like the complaint of being cold or tired. Useless, futile, obvious, but voicing it still feels so necessary.

Viktor glances from the corner of his eye. He hands a customer their beverage, pleasant smiles abound, but they’re gone when he turns to Yuri.

“Yuri, when you ask that, you’re just… asking, right?”

Yuri snorts. “What is that supposed to mean?” He pours Oleander into a latte. A weird order.

He hands it off to Viktor to call out the next customer, but Viktor nearly fails to take it.

“Watch it!” Yuri grumbles, readjusting his grip on the cup. He sets it on the counter instead. “What’s with you?”

“Yuri, I thought you were just stubborn…” His voice trails.

“The hell are you on about, really?”

He blinks and shakes his head, coming back to the planet long enough to call out the customer for their Oleander-Latte.

A particularly loud crash of thunder shakes the building. The ceiling lights flicker.

“What do you think you’re trying to do during your shows?”

“Um… like, entertain them?”

Viktor looks a million words and lost for all of them, but there isn’t time to answer anyway. There’s a crash from outside, but it doesn’t sound like thunder this time.

Cafe patrons shout in surprise and begin twisting in their seats to glance out the window.

Yuri and Viktor leave the counter to check outside, but their view is of the buildings across the street. The rain is somehow heavier than before. One can hardly see through its torrents.

Customers are murmuring about not being able to get home at this rate, and Yuri prays to the unholy sky itself he won’t be stuck here all night with Viktor and a bunch of strangers.

They’re only just around the counter when the storm gushes in with the opening of the door. Of course, it’s Otabek, hair slicked back from the rain because the umbrella he’s holding sure as hell wasn’t going to hold up against that mess out there. What was he thinking?

“Oh, Otabek, welcome,” Viktor chimes in before Yuri can spit his own words out.

Not that Yuri had words ready to spit. He wants to have them, but he’s tangled in messy thoughts.

The last time he saw Otabek was in his tent several nights ago, after they…

And then well, the storms began after that.

Yuri has yet to reconcile the fault in his own magic since then. He still feels Otabek’s influence clinging to him like ropes, trapping him to the ground. With Otabek closer, those coils seem to hum. It’s reminiscent of the crack of light.

When their eyes lock, Yuri braces himself, but Otabek just looks away fast.

He orders his drink from Viktor and Yuri forgets to listen for what it is, but Viktor doesn’t have him make it anyway.

The door opens on a flash of lightning as Otabek leaves.

~

Yuri doesn’t know what triggers it.

It could be so many things.

The memory of the way Viktor was speechless that Yuri thinks his magic is for entertainment.

All the times Otabek has looked at him expectantly, only to be disappointed by Yuri’s anger at him.

Or it could’ve been that he was laying in his bed, trying to remember how to conjure emptiness, when another crash hit against the planet and the ground shuddered, the walls of his own house trembling with it, and when he went out to peer through the waterfalls coming from the sky – he saw not what had fallen, but where it’d fallen from.

It was only an inkling of a thought that came to him. A small memory that could have been a dream or a once-upon-a-time-delusion, but he has a feeling this was a sign. He wasn’t usually one for fancy.

(Unless wrestling the immeasurable woes of spacetime counts as fancy.)

The rain hits so hard with the wind that it fucking hurts, but he runs through it. Like mad, mad as he’s ever been at anything and everything, but this time he’s putting it toward something tangible.

Yuri stands there with the rain dripping from his hair. His clothes are soaked through, and it's so cold that the rectangle of light from the open doorway he’s standing in almost feels warm.

So, the sky is falling.

“Where is he?” He grits his teeth. There’s an elderly man at the door to the Records House. Yuri followed the trail of Otabek’s magic here, weak though it was in this chaos.

The man looks behind him, then above him at the grey sky and sheets of water, then finally meets his eyes.

“You must be Yuri,” he says.

“Is Otabek here or not?”

“Ah, I-“

“Yuri?”

And there he is. He’s holding a notebook to his chest, a pen still set in his fingers. He looks surprised, but not unhappy.

Yuri shoves a hand out but quickly retracts it, face flushing through the cold. “We have to go,” he says and hopes he sounds confident.

At first he thinks Otabek is just going to stand there, dumbfounded and maybe even disgusted. But the old man is stepping aside as if he, too, knows this is the Way, and a grin spreads across Otabek’s face. He hands his notebook and pen off to the old man.

“I don’t understand what took you so long, but let’s go.”

~

They let the rain drench them. Yuri isn’t sure they need to go all the way to the grounds, but since it started there, they ought to end it in the same place.

The town feels practically abandoned with everyone shut away indoors. Ghosts are in the rain that still manages to fall from the fragmented sky.

“I didn’t know,” Yuri admits. He almost has to yell. The storm is loud and there’s a roaring out there that’s either the rain or a shout from whatever is behind the sky.

(It isn’t outer space this time, that’s for sure.)

“I still don’t really know.”

They’re standing before the tent grounds. The tents, of course, are collapsed and if not entirely missing, strewn around.

“I suspected that,” Otabek says. “I’m glad you figured enough out.”

Yuri stares at his hands as they walk. Water streams down them. It’s almost like they’re swimming out here.

“Do you think it’s because of my magic?”

“Most definitely. You have the hardest job of all.”

Not to entertain, Yuri acquiesces with a quiet, ide smile.

“What… exactly is that?”

Otabek waits until they’re standing where his tent once was. They position each other across from one another like before. Rain is the only thing that cuts between them.

Finally, he answers, “You remind us where we come from.”

~

> _We are a way for the universe to know itself._
> 
> – Carl Sagan

~

It’s amazing to let Otabek’s magic in without a fight.

That it’s okay for a soul to be a universe and a universe to be a soul. There’s a star at the center of the planet, and tree roots can reach upward into the vastness to pull from the energies there when the planet is no longer enough.

Their magic is boundless without a tent to contain them, but that’s what the world needs right now. It needs them to put together what they tore down, wholly, as much as they can.

Yuri sees at last that the sky isn’t a limit but a mere painting of color to keep the world from falling out of itself, and so they put it back together.

Yuri isn’t always sure which moments are him surrounded in the beauties of the planet and which are the beauties of other planets.

The press of atmosphere is the membrane of another universe, one where maybe he didn’t forget who he was.

A star explodes and it’s the beat of his own heart.

They both look up and see beyond the patched sky: the crack in the void is there, its white light peeking through, but it’s closing.

“What do you think was out there?” Yuri asks as the last of it heals.

“I think,” Otabek says slowly, “there are some things we aren’t ready for yet.”

The rain slows, and the storm is a distant calling over the forested hills. Soon it’ll fall over the edge.

Their magic is coming down now. They’re almost done, and as the last of the light fades from the sun Otabek promises the morning, he says without looking Yuri in the eyes, “You know, we will have to do this again. Many times. The others need to see. So that this is what they’ll believe in. We… we need their belief. I don’t know what you-“

“I know.”

He looks at Yuri, relieved.

Yuri remembers, finally, his place in their duality.

But even if he hadn’t remembered, he’d be okay with this.

“I really, really always liked how your magic felt,” he confesses.

Otabek tilts his head. “And why do you think I was always watching you?”

Yuri laughs then, because he’s been such a fool.

He grabs Otabek’s hand, or maybe Otabek grabs his first; he isn’t sure.

Their lips meet, and this isn’t like before where Yuri wanted to crush him into his own ground with a kiss. It’s better than that, where Otabek wipes the remaining clouds from the sky and Yuri puts back the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> my [tumblr is skateonme](http://skateonme.tumblr.com/) and my [twitter is neptunedemon](http://twitter.com/neptunedemon/) <3
> 
> thanks for reading!! definitely kudo and comment pls, this was fun to write!
> 
>  **UPDATE:** if this was your jam, i now have a viktuuri story written in the same universe called [We Call Everything on the Ice 'Love'](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18402272); the universe's laws are still slightly modified, and yuuri doesn't have oceanic powers as referenced here, but i hope it's still fun!


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